Last week (February 26-March 4, 2017) was Freedom to Read Week in Canada, an “annual event that encourages Canadians to think about and reaffirm their commitment to intellectual freedom.”

The Canadian Federation of Library Associations/Fédération canadienne des associations de bibliothèques (CFLA-FCAB) celebrated Freedom to Read Week by releasing a preliminary report (pdf) on the 2016 findings from their annual Challenges Survey. Each year CFLA-FCAB collects information on materials and services that have been challenged in Canadian public, academic, and special libraries.

Check out the report to get a sample of the challenges libraries face for the materials in their collections and the services they provide.

In addition to being Fair Dealing Week, this week is also Freedom to Read Week in Canada. Freedom to Read Week is organized every year by the Book and Periodical Council to “encourage Canadians to think about and reaffirm their commitment to intellectual freedom, which is guaranteed them under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

To celebrate, this is a good week to read a banned or challenged work. Not sure what those are? Here are a couple of lists to get you started:

Challenged Works List – More than 100 books, magazines, and other written works that have been challenged in the last decades in Canada. Prepared by the Freedom of Expression Committee of the Book and Periodical Council.

Freedom to Read Week is “an annual event that encourages Canadians to think about and reaffirm their commitment to intellectual freedom, which is guaranteed them under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.” It’s organized every year by The Book and Periodical Council, which is “the umbrella organization for writing and publishing in Canada,” and is endorsed and supported by the Canadian Library Association.

In recognition of Freedom to Read Week 2011, we offered lists of banned or challenged books which are available at RDC Library. Take a look – you might be surprised by some of the titles on the list. Or go one step further and borrow one!

Perusing a book catalogue recently, I came across a book called Tankograd – The Formation of a Soviet Company Town: Cheliabinsk, 1900s-1950s. Thinking it might be a good present for my history buff father, I did some “Googling” for Cheliabinsk. I was astonished to spot a link to a documentary about how Cheliabinsk (or Chelyabinsk) is “THE MOST CONTAMINATED SPOT ON THE PLANET.” How had I never heard of it?

Looking more closely at my search results, I was puzzled. There was the ubiquitous Wikipedia article, the inflammatory documentary, then some tourist sites and hotel ads. But not a whole lot about environmental devastation.

Then, moving to page 2, I came across an article about SEO or “search engine optimization.”

Search engine optimization is used in marketing to manipulate results rankings, so (for example) one business offering a particular service can appear higher or more frequently in a search engine’s output. However, if that business has received much bad press that will appear more frequently also. “SEO professionals” try to improve the image of a business by deliberately influencing the indexing and ranking systems to try to get the good ahead of the bad.

Evidently, the Russians, concerned that the fuss about extensive nuclear contamination was hindering tourism and investment, paid thousands of dollars to consultants to massage the area’s online profile to downplay the negativity.

In all fairness, no one really knew much of what was going on at Cheylabinsk at all until recently, as it was a “closed city” until 1992. However, by manipulating search engines, the Russian authorities can continue to keep people from finding out. What else isn’t Google telling you?

“Freedom to Read Week is an annual event that encourages Canadians to think about and reaffirm their commitment to intellectual freedom, which is guaranteed them under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
—freedomtoread.ca